


Let Go

by RetrogradeAries (AriesOnMars)



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Bloodplay, F/M, Master & Padawan Relationship(s), Sex Pollen, Vagina Dentata
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-21
Updated: 2018-06-21
Packaged: 2019-05-26 15:25:02
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,581
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15003788
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AriesOnMars/pseuds/RetrogradeAries
Summary: One more mission with her former Master brings Ahsoka closer to Anakin than she's ever been before.





	Let Go

**Author's Note:**

  * For [thedevilchicken](https://archiveofourown.org/users/thedevilchicken/gifts).



“Ahsoka? Ahsoka! Wake up!”

At the moment that seemed like the worst advice anyone could have given her. Her whole body ached and her head throbbed horribly, there was a buzzing feeling in her montral like some kind of whirring, whining, miniaturized mouse droid was scooting around inside of her horns and trying to find a way out. Her shoulder was grabbed ad shaken and she groaned low at the movement when it made her whole body twitch and tense.

“Oh, Snips,” she heard as she was suddenly pulled up and awkwardly held against robes and armor. It was the tone more than the voice that finally made her open her eyes and look up at her former Master. She’d heard Anakin sound a lot of different ways over the years, but he’d never sounded so relieved before.

“M’alright, Skyguy…” Ahsoka managed to mumble out, but she really didn’t sound alright at all. Now that she was really waking up she was aware that she wasn’t moving right. She tried to move her hand up to pat his back, but all she managed was a sharp, jarring twitch.

“You got hit worse than I did, but we have to get moving,” Anakin said as he stook up awkwardly. He wasn’t much better than her, he was jerking oddly, but it was a little more controlled than Ahsoka’s movements, and he pulled her to sit up with his left hand. There was a pause as he looked over her and himself, then he pressed a little too close, getting the crook of his right elbow under her arm to pull her up the rest of the way. Ahsoka stumbled and leaned a little too heavily on Anakin, and she had to grab onto his robes with fingers that felt weak and shaky, but she managed to half-climb the man until she was standing.

“Why’re you…?” Ahsoka mumbled as she looked down at Anakin’s hands, but then it made sense. His left hand was fine, but under the glove his right was hanging wrongly, the way a body looked wrong and out of sorts when the life had left it. His cybernetics were completely off without even the standby power to retain some rigidity to keep the delicate pieces in place. Ahsoka fumbled to take her lightsaber out, but when she tried to activate it nothing happened. “An EMP hit us?”

“Not like the one the Republic was trying to make,” Anakin said as he put his good hand on her back and lead her away. The forest they had been in was thick and dense, it was hard to see around a bend in the path they had been traveling let alone into the woodland itself. So, of course, Anakin was leaving them off of the road and into the trees. “We were trying to make one that wouldn’t interfere with bioelectric signals in the body and brain, and one where cybernetics on a person could recover from the blast. This one was standard, maybe even amped up. I don’t know how long we were out but we probably don’t have a lot of time.”

“Whoever set off the EMP will be looking for us,” Ahsoka said as she figured out what Anakin was saying. “And as long as we’re off the path they won’t find us as easily.”

“You got it, Snips,” Anakin grinned.

“Because the woods are dangerous and nobody goes into them unless they want to get hurt or die.”

“We’re not going to die.”

“Just get hurt, then,” Ahsoka said, and she tried not to feel the pang at how easily she fell back into place beside Anakin. It felt like there should have been some change after she left the Jedi Temple, that Anakin should somehow be harder to reach or understand or connect to than he once was.

 

* * *

 

Traveling in the woods was slow. They had to be aware of the animals around them, and more than once Anakin had to hold completely still for Ahsoka to listen to the forest. There was too  much life around them to simply sense with the Force. Was something near them? Of course, but was it a small rodent hidden in the underbrush, or a bat sleeping between leaves, or a predator dozing just behind the next tree that would react badly to them? Far easier for Ahsoka to listen and get a better idea of the size of the creature as it moved.

Finally getting back to the ship they’d come in didn’t solve any problems other than being in a clear-ish area. They’d touched down in a clearing in the forest, it was just a meadow with a lake nearby, but the towering trees had hidden the ship well. To be fair it was a small one, but they were on a covert mission and hiding in the forest was something they were aiming for. It was only now that it became more apparently that they weren’t nearly as well hidden as they assumed they were.

“It’s dead,” Anakin spat out when he finally came out to join Ahsoka again.

“That’s not surprising,” Ahsoka sighed. She had been looking over the meadow, she’d felt movement, but she couldn’t see anything out of place and had written it off as wind moving the trees high up overhead. The clearing was bigger now than when they’d left it, a little ways away there was a new crater that was already partially full of groundwater and decorated with scrap metal, with some of the nearby huge trees bent and cracked and leaning away from it. The only good thing about the hole in the ground was that it showed it obviously hadn’t been a big bomb that was dropped, but it wasn’t a particularly sophisticated one if what should have just been a pulse bomb still blew that badly, and it was obviously aimed for them. “Not that it’d help much anyway.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Here, look,” Ahsoka pushed off the ship and went to lead him to the landing gear where, close enough to be almost hidden, there was a deep gouge in the metal. “The ship’s been breached, we wouldn’t be able to leave the planet. We might’ve been able to make it to an outpost, but I wouldn’t trust flying with a score that close to the fuel line.”

“What did that?” Anakin crouched down some to look at the gouge.

“Shrapnel I’m guessing.”

Anakin shook his head, “No, shrapnel couldn’t have done this. It’s not angled right, there’s not enough damage around it, and there’s one key thing you’re missing.”

“Yeah? And what’s that?” Ahsoka smiled a little as she watched him, expecting it to be a bluff.

“If a chunk of metal gouged the ship then where is it?”

Ahsoka frowned and looked around, then crouched next to Anakin with him to look. He was right, there wasn’t a piece of metal anywhere around that could have done the damage they were looking at, not in the puncture or around it. She tilted her head just a fraction as she thought, that same wind-in-the-trees movement she could hear through her montral before, and again she ignored it.

“Maybe if it was--”

“Snips, get up. We’re going to walk very slowly to the woods, alright?”

Ahsoka tensed and glanced back at him. Anakin had looked behind them when Ahsoka had tilted her head to listen, and he was staring intently at the edge of the forest directly behind them. She was too curious and she glanced back to look with him, but she didn’t see anything. Long pillars of tree trunks, huge twisted branches, heavy foliage and thick underbrush. She couldn’t hear anything moving that would be a threatening size, and she couldn’t see any shadows or patterns. “What is it? I don’t see anything.”

“Well it sees you, so come on, get up and get going,” Anakin eased up slowly, keeping his eyes on the place in the trees and trying to reach for her. Muscle memory and habit had him reach for her with his damaged prosthetic, and the metal jangled with it hit her shoulder.

“I’m not your padawan anymore, you can’t just tell me what to do,” Ahsoka snapped, although she kept her voice low. She didn’t doubt him that there was something there.

“You don’t need to be my padawan you just need to trust me,” Anakin hissed back.

“How am I supposed to trust you when you don’t tell me what’s going on?”

“Fine,” Anakin hissed and crouched down some next to her to get his head on her level. He was looking ahead and had to reach awkwardly to get his left hand under her chin and tilt her so they were looking at the same angle. “Straight ahead.”

Ahsoka squinted her eyes, expecting something to be hiding in the branches where Anakin had her looking almost two thirds up into the trees. What she finally saw was an odd shining black shape embedded in the bark of a tree, not circular enough to be a lense for a camera, but that was the only thing that came to mind. “What is that?”

“That’s it’s eye.”

As soon as Anakin said it the rest of the creature became visible. It was a cervid, huge and towering, the body like it had been squished from either side until it looked more like a fish than a deer. The head was long and narrow, the legs surprisingly thick and looking no different from the trees. It either had one antler or two that were so twisted and twined together that it might as well have been one. It arched above the head like a fan, the prongs dangling dead leaves that had either gotten caught and pulled off the trees or the creature had scraped onto it’s head itself to hide better.

“It’s huge.”

“And watching us, just back up slowly and give it some room.”

Ahsoka nodded and pulled away from him, starting to creep back away from the ship. Anakin moved with her, but when they were halfway there something must have changed--either their scent or they moved wrong or they were headed towards something the huge cervid didn’t want them to go towards. It snorted and moved, and it was like part of the forest came alive. Massive, oddly flat hooves stepped out from the underbrush as it trod into the clearing.

“So what’s the chance it’s going for a drink?” Ahsoka muttered low. The deer shook its head and lowered it as it faced them, the fanned ridge of prongs pointing to them now.

“Not good-- _go!_ ” Anakin shouted just a fraction of a second before the huge beast charged. Ahsoka didn’t need to be told twice, she turned away from the creature and bolted to the forest. Even if they had their lightsabers she wouldn’t have wanted to fight the thing unless she had to. It was just defending it’s home, even if defending it’s home meant it was running her down.

They ran into the trees, Ahsoka could hear Anakin behind her, but when she glanced back over her shoulder she yelled, “Don’t stop!”

It seemed like with a creature so large it should have had to stop at the edge of the forest and pick its way through, but it didn’t. The strangely flat body twisted and undulated between the trees, large legs crashing down on the underbrush but never losing step, and it wove through the forest after them. The only part of its body that didn’t wind around the flora was the antlers.

“Go right!” Ahsoka yelled.

“Left’s better!” Anakin cried out and he was already bolting towards that direction.

“How is it better?!” Ahsoka turned sharply to follow after him, though, and the deer cried out when they left it’s line of sight. They at least had an advantage in how much smaller they were than it, and they slowed down so the noise wouldn’t bring the beast back towards them. After a minute the cervid let out another cry and they could hear it starting to back out of the woods, and almost too soon the sound of crunching metal filtered through the trees.

“Goodbye, ship,” Ahsoka sighed.

 

* * *

 

“It’s getting dark,” Anakin said low as he looked up to the heavy leaves hanging from the trees. It might not be that late, but in the forest most of the light was filtered through foliage anyway. “It’s going to get dangerous out here without light or weapons.”

“Do you have an idea?”

“Yeah. Get ready to jump,” Anakin said as he reached over and took Ahsoka’s arm and tugged her to stand somewhere just slightly different.

Ahsoka crouched down, tensed, and nodded, “Ready.”

She felt the pressure grow beneath her, not in the ground or under her feet but in the very air, and she knew when it was at its peak. As soon as it was she jumped hard, her own abilities and with Anakin’s help she jumped past the branches, missing the large boughs by just a sliver at times, and grabbing onto one of the topmost branches to steady herself and look out across the forest canopy. It wasn’t as dark as it was on the forest floor, but it was still sunset and the light was waning. She shifted to climb up the tall branches a little more, looking across the trees and--there. A clearing with a low light coming from it. She watched it for movement, then moved back to drop down to the ground again. She was falling hard and fast, the trees surrounding them were huge, but when she was close to the ground there was that same pressure, around her, under her, in her, and her descent slowed until she could hit the ground safely. Once Ahsoka was on the ground again Anakin dropped his hand.

“Well?”

“Pretty sure I found who set off the EMP.”

“Where?”

“That way,” Ahsoka pointed towards where she had seen the faint glow of a camp. “Too close for comfort, far enough away we can get around them.”

“There’s nothing to go around them for. We’re too far from the observation station and even if we weren’t the personnel have been evacuated until the animals calm down, it’s nothing but maintenance droids now. Besides, I don’t really want to run into our friend again. Our best bet’s to head right towards them, take them by surprise, see if they have a ship we can borrow.”

“Think they knew Jedi were on the ship?”

“Maybe. The ship’s got Republic insignia on it, and they’d have had to see it from the air to know where to hit.”

“They might have just seen us land,” Ahsoka said.

“They still attacked a Jedi and a mercenary, that’s not going to look good on anybody’s record.”

Ahsoka tensed without knowing why for a moment. It was the word, or it was being separated from the Jedi so casually, or it was the fact that Anakin had said it, but she wasn’t entirely sure which. It wasn’t that she was ashamed of what she was doing. She had skills that could help people and she needed money now that she didn’t have the Temple covering costs for basic living--food, clothing, transportation, things she’d taken for granted most of her life.

“Why am I here?” she asked. It had just be one more thought in her mind but she knew she couldn’t keep that to herself. She hadn’t gone to the Temple asking for work, they’d come to her.

“Something’s going on with the animal life here. You saw it with the big guy, they’re getting more violent towards people that come to the observation station and want to walk through the safe areas set up on-planet. There’s no obvious signs as to why, and--”

“No, I got that at the briefing,” Ahsoka cut him off. “I meant why me. Why did you need to hire someone to come with you?”

Anakin was quiet and started towards where Ahsoka had pointed. Ahsoka followed after him but she was still tense and now she was more curious than before. Being in this position again, seeing all of Anakin’s old habits that she remembered and knew too well made her feel… strange. She was upset, there was a part of her that was sad and she understood that, and a part that was angry which she understood less than the sadness. She wanted some proof that things were different for him too. Seeing and hearing him be the same as he’d always been felt wrong somehow. He should have been upset just as much as she was--even if he was the Jedi and supposed to be in control of his emotions and she wasn’t anymore. Ahsoka opened her mouth, caught herself almost calling Anakin ‘Master’ and closed it with a snap. She tried again, “So, why me? If you just needed backup you could have brought Rex.”

“He’s needed in battle.”

“What, and you’re not?”

“Besides, if we’re not able to run away and we need to calm down one of those creatures it’ll be a lot easier to do that using the Force.”

“Then why not Master Kenobi? Or--anyone, why not--”

“Master Luminara was the first recommendation for this mission,” Anakin said suddenly. Ahsoka paused, and Anakin stopped walking too. She waited and finally Anakin’s shoulders sagged and he let out a breath. “But I couldn’t go with her. I’m not ready to forgive her yet. Pretty sure she’s just as glad not to be around me, too.”

“What do you need to forgive her for?” Ahsoka frowned and came closer to him.

“Barriss,” Anakin said simply. “She was her padawan. She should have seen something was wrong with her student, she should have _sensed_ something. I look back at her now and all I can think of is how willing Luminara was to let go of Barriss on the battlefield, how she told me not to be attached to you. You weren’t the one who did anything wrong, you weren’t the one who turned around and attacked us, you shouldn’t have been--”

Ahsoka put her hand on Anakin’s shoulder and he twitched at the touch. He looked at her, the darkness was creeping over them now and it wouldn’t be long until she’d have to lead them. Her eyes could dilate further than his could, her night vision was better.

“Mas--Anakin,” Ahsoka said, and she glanced away from him for a moment, embarrassed at the slip. “If Luminara made a mistake, even a really big one, that’s not on you. You have to let go, even if you can’t forgive her you can’t hold onto that.”

Anakin smiled a little and huffed out a small chuckle, “I thought I was supposed to be the Jedi here.”

“And I’m hired help, so let me help,” Ahsoka said with her own smile. She moved her hand down to take Anakin’s and start to guide him through the forest. The grip was loose in her hand, and she could feel the plates that covered Anakin’s prosthetic hand more acutely than she ever had when he could control it.

“I wanted to see you, too,” Anakin said after a while. It was long enough that Ahsoka had to take a moment to remember what they had been talking about before. She looked back to Anakin as she guided him past a tangle of roots.

“Take your time, don’t fall,” she said. “I’m surprised the Temple gave you money just to hire me for that.”

“They, ah, didn’t. I was lent that,” Anakin admitted.

“Who gave you the loan? Senator Amidala?” Ahsoka teased.

“Padmé and I…” Anakin frowned as he cleared the twisted roots. “The senator and I haven’t… seen much of each other lately.”

There was a weight to the words that implied how much they really meant. Ahsoka paused and found she didn’t know what to say to him at that, and finally just settled on, “I’m sorry.”

“You didn’t do anything to be sorry for. I did,” Anakin said. Ahsoka didn’t expect him to go on more than that, she knew her old Master well enough to know that even getting that much out of him for something personal was pretty surprising. Anakin continued as though he was trying to cover up the words with something new, “Chancellor Palpatine gave me the credits.”

“That was nice of him,” Ahsoka looked towards the light she had seen before. It was a ways off, but there was a faint glow coming from around the trees now as they continued. It was hard to tell how close they were, everything was so filtered and the trees were of such uneven sizes that it made looking through them disorienting. “You were a good teacher. I got frustrated with you sometimes, but overall you were good. You could be a Master again, if you wanted to.”

“I don’t miss teaching,” Anakin said. “Just you.”

Ahsoka helped get him onto even ground and looked up at him. In the faint light from the campground Anakin was able to look at her and actually see her, not just look vaguely in her direction and hope he was at least close to the mark. She was saved from not knowing how to respond when Anakin nodded towards the faint light.

“If we want to catch them by surprise we should probably be quiet now.”

 

* * *

 

“Stupid bucket of bolts, come on.”

“Quit hittin’ it, Dox, that ain’t gonna make the power turn on no faster.”

“I don’t need you ta-a-alking like that to me!”

“Those sure don’t sound like Separatists,” Ahsoka muttered low to Anakin as they crept between trees. He leaned out carefully to look into the light then tucked back into the shadow of the tree with her.

“They don’t look like it either,” Anakin murmured. “We might be able to rush them and scare them off.”

“That’ll go over great when we don’t have blasters or lightsabers,” she said as he leaned out to look towards the voices as well. It wasn’t a big group, just three people were standing in a strange out-of place field in the forest of low-growing flower buds.

“I ha-a-ate this droid,” the Gotal grumbled, clearly loud enough for her cohorts--a Devaronian and Togruta--to hear her if Anakin and Ahsoka could hear her just fine.

“Yeah, yeah, y’made that real clear. But we ain’t got ‘nough hands t’harvest the Silda before mornin’.”

“If you hadn’t set off the fizz-popper you wouldn’t be wrestling with that droid now.”

“I sa-a-aw something, I know I di-i-id.”

Ahsoka pulled back and turned to Anakin with a questioning frown, “Silda?”

“It explains what they’re doing out here,” Anakin said. “Silda’s illegal to grow. It’s illegal to own. It needs a lot of light, a lot of space, and too many people want it.”

“Doesn’t that make growing it in a preservation a really bad idea?”

“It’s a better idea than trying to keep it on your own farm.”

“Wha-a-at was that?”

Anakin and Ahsoka both tensed and looked to each other. He jerked hand up, thumb towards the tops of the trees, and she nodded. As Ahsoka found her handholds in the thick bark of the tree Anakin turned and went around it and into the dim glow of the farm. He made sure to kick as much of the underbrush as he could without making it obvious as he walked to cover up the sounds of Ahsoka’s ascent.

“Evening, everyone,” Anakin said as he looked over the three farmers--and glanced quickly over what he could of their setup. There was an old generator by an equally old tent, both looked like they’d seen better days but were still dependable enough. There wasn’t a lot else in the way of tech, some weak spotlights to let the three know where they were going, a dented harvest droid that the Gotal was still crouched beside and a light freighter parked a little ways off. Anakin could see standby lights on inside of it from where he was, it might’ve parked outside the EMP blast or it might have just landed after the fact. These people weren’t Separatists disturbing the local wildlife as they hid something in the forests, they were using weapons that only affected electronics to try and make it as subtle as possible that they were even out here. But they were still willing to strand a person, or multiple people, out in this untamed and uncontrolled environment where they’d most likely be badly hurt or even die. “Would anyone like to explain why my ship’s grounded?”

“Who’re you?”

The tone immediately changed. The Gotal by the harvester, already clearly nervous before, was outright trembling now. These people weren’t soldiers or hardened criminals, they couldn’t even really be called farmers, but they had access to weapons and the Togruta took a blaster from his belt.

“I’ve been sent by the Republic to determine the cause of the sudden behavioral changes in the local wildlife. There were concerns that with how close the preserve was to a nearby base there could be Separatists attempting to use the nature preserve here as cover for an attack,” Anakin kept his hands behind his back as he walked, holding the wrist of his defunct prosthetic with his good hand and giving the appearance of nonchalance. He wasn’t really interested in informing the group why exactly he was there, but the longer he kept their attention the more time Ahsoka had to get across the branches. She’d have to cut them off from their ship or the three would just run, and then they’d lose their way off-planet.

“Well, there ain’t no Separatists here.”

“No, there doesn’t appear to be. You’re lucky, but the sentence for growing and transporting an illegal good as well as destruction of protected woodland is going to be pretty lengthy.”

“Ain’t happenin’,” the Devaronian snarled and drew his blaster and shot in one quick motion. A trained soldier he wasn’t, and Anakin dodged the sloopy move in a quick motion. He let go of this wrist to hold his hand out, directing the Force with the movement, and the Gotal cried out as the droid she’d been hiding behind was shoved hard into her and toppled over. As soon as she was shoved over Anakin’s attention went to the blaster she had and was yanking it hard from her hand to catch it. It had all happened so fast it wasn’t until after the blaster was in his hand that the Devaronian got his second shot off, and by then Anakin was able to return fire. He wasn’t actually trying to hit him, as aggravating as the group were they were more of an annoyance than a threat, but he could use the shots to herd the two away from the freighter.

“What is this?!” the Togruta called out, his own blaster apparently forgotten, and he made to run for the ship. Ahsoka dropped down from above directly in his path and he barely managed to register she was there before she hit him hard under the chin. He went down hard and she yanked his blaster out of his hand hard to aim it at the Devaronian.

“Put your weapon down!” she called out to him.

He didn’t obey, instead retreating to the generator to take shelter there as he kept firing. One shot went past Anakin’s head and into the forest--and from in it there was a low, rumbling call. The sound made everyone pause, and the only thing that kept Anakin from looking back towards it was the fact her knew the guy would shoot him in the back if he had the chance. But the call got louder and the sound of underbrush being trampled by something far too large started accompanying it. The Gotal screamed first and ran across the Silda field, the stems of the flowers breaking as she went. After that it was harder to tell what happened when. It looked like part of the forest came alive as the cervid from before--or one very much like it--thundered out from between the trees. Anakin had to run away from massive hooves as it ran through the campsite and the farm. It didn’t just break the Silda, it crushed massive amounts of it, the buds broken under an excessive amount of weight, and as the beast moved it trailed a faint lilac powder from the crushed plants that caught the wind.

Ahsoka was already in the ship by the time Anakin got there, as soon as he was up into it he called through the small ship, “Let’s get going!”

“What about them?” Ahsoka was in the pilot’s seat, already prepping it for takeoff.

“They’re already gone,” Anakin moved over her to look through the cockpit window, and sure enough the last one running away from the camp was the Togruta Ahsoka had hit before, still stumbling from her punch. “I thought I was the pilot here.”

“You thought wrong, Skyguy,” Ahsoka said with a grin, and as soon as the bay door was open she was taking off. The cervid was behind them, weaving its way through the trees and back to continue it’s rampage. Twisted, pointed prongs were towards them as it lowered its head--but Ahsoka was gone before the beast could puncture the hull.

 

* * *

 

It should have been a quick, simple trip once they were off the planet, but they weren’t coming down from the adrenaline rush from the fight in the Silda field. Ahsoka had to delete what she typed into the system three times because of how hard her hands were trembling. Finally it was in and they jumped into hyperspace safely enough, with a fairly short trip until they were back and could give their report, along with descriptions of the three who were most likely in the woods hiding from the cervid now. Ahsoka left the cockpit to go back to see what Anakin was up to, and she found him sitting on a sparse cot with his prosthetic hand half-opened and a small assortment of tools between his lips.

“Trying to get it working?” she asked as she came over to him. He mumbled something with the tools still between his teeth, and she reaches up to take them out for him. “Try again.”

“There’s no damage, I just need to get it reconnected to pull power from the bioelectricity between my own cells,” he said as he leaned close to the open mechanism and carefully slit the long piece of metal between two tiny panels in the inner workings. It was pretty obvious he wasn’t using proper equipment for what he was doing, but they didn’t have a whole lot to work with.

“Thought you’d be done by now, you’re usually good with your hands,” Ahsoka said as she watched him. She felt… overly aware of him. For the longest time Anakin was always there but not someone she took too much notice of, the way she didn’t really notice her own body when she moved, or the contained plasma of her own lightsabers when she used them. But right now he was heat near her arm but not quite touching her, the sound of fabric shifting as he moved and his robes rustled, the faint clink-click of the mechanics in his arm he was tinkering with. He glanced to her hand and she held up the tools she had taken from his mouth without having to be asked. He stuck the one he was using back between his lips--old habits die hard, after all--and reached for her hand. His fingers were on her and Ahsoka just barely managed to stifle a soft sound in the back of her throat. Anakin wasn’t so lucky, his hand trembled, he paused, and instead of taking one tool he slid his fingers along hers and to her palm to touch over what he could of her skin. His eyes met hers and there was a beat before he finally took a tool from her hand and started closing up the panels he was working on. He was mumbling around the metal in his mouth again and with a huff Ahsoka reached up to take it again. “Stop trying to talk with stuff in your mouth.”

“I can’t do this, I can’t focus well enough to fix this. I feel like half my mind’s missing and it’s been replaced with--I don’t even know what,” he said as he screwed the main panel back into place and pushed his sleeve up to disconnect the prosthetic. If he couldn’t fix it yet he could at least keep from having to carry around useless weight. “It’s the Silda, we should have been fine until the morning when the flowers opened but when they were crushed it force the pollen out anyway. It affects the brain, it makes you want--it doesn’t matter, I’m not going to--”

Ahsoka reached up and put her fingers to his lips. It was partially to quiet him but she couldn’t deny she just wanted to touch him. He didn’t stop her, he turned his head a little into the touch and parted his lips again, like her thumb was another tool to keep tucked between them.

“What does it make you want?” she spoke low, but she already knew. She could feel it in herself when she slid her thumb along his bottom lip and just barely grazed it against his teeth--they weren’t as sharp as she was expecting.

“This,” Anakin sighed against her hand, he turned his head just a little to press a kiss to her palm. Their training bond was never truly gone, but time and distance had dulled it until for either of them it was little more than a twinge when something was wrong with the other. But now she could feel his mind along with his warmth, fuzzy emotions and that same over-awareness that made Ahsoka more conscious of not only Anakin but her own body as well. There was need and pride and perhaps guilt, but more than all of that there was desire. _Desire_ , not the word but the feeling that described more perfectly what was happening to them than words could.

Anakin opened his mouth to say something and she cut him off as she pulled him closer and pressed her lips to his. She felt him shift against her, and something in his mind resolved, and he pressed into the kiss. He parted his lips and she eagerly took the invitation, and with touch and contact the foggy feeling left her mind, replaced with a needy heat that settled over her. Ahsoka settled in his lap and tilted his head back as she coaxed the kiss deeper. He moaned against her and the sound spurred her on, his hand on her hip and dragging gloved nails along the small of her back and up. She sucked on his lower lip and bit down, and when he mouth flooded with a savory, metallic taste she rocked against his lap. Anakin hissed against her, and at first she didn’t notice it was different from any other noise he was making, but he pulled back and she felt something drip down her chin.

“Be--ah, be careful, your skin’s tougher than mine,” he muttered against her mouth, pressing a wet kiss to her lips, her chin, and Ahsoka leaned back just a little to look at him. His bottom lip was cut, not deeply but more than enough that dark red blood was oozing freely. Togruta teeth were sharper than a human’s, much sharper, and his skin couldn’t handle the near razor sharpness.

“Sorry--” Ahsoka started to mumble but Anakin pressed another kiss to her lips and quieted her. It was just as well, with his blood on her tongue she really didn’t feel sorry. She wanted to bite him again. Not deeply, not enough to really injure him, but she wanted to taste sticky, savory, iron-rich blood. She wanted to trace patterns in it on his skin with her tongue and fingers. It was such a base desire, to want to see him give everything he had to her. She twisted her hands in his hair and pulled him closer, the way she was sitting in his lap gave her the advantage of height for once and she forced his head back as she pushed him onto the cot. Her tongue traveled over his injured lip, his teeth, his tongue, blood on all of it, as he fumbled with her clothing one-handed. She pushed him back completely and touched over him herself. Fingernails scraped over armor and fabric without finding any good purchase, and she pulled back from him with a growl when she’d gotten to his belt without finding somewhere to open fabric or remove armor.

“You’re wearing too much,” she said, and it sounded more like an accusation than she meant it to.

“So are you,” Anakin chuckled and he pressed up to kiss her chin, her cheek, moving to nuzzle at the curve of her lekku. Ahsoka’s breath caught and she shivered as she pressed against him harder, all the more aware of how much fabric there was between the two of them as his lips and breath warmed her sensitive skin. He left a smear of red blood across the dark blue and white of patterns and traced the outline of the pattern with his tongue. There was no different to feel in the soft-leather texture of her lekku, but it made Ahsoka moan and that was more than good enough for him to continue. Her hands moved lower, more frantic now as she touched and shoved fabric aside, pulling at clothing she’d seen more times than she could count but never let herself imagine exactly how she’d get it off before now. Her frustration built and so did her need, and when Anakin bit down on her neck with his dull, blunted teeth she pulled too hard and heard something rip.

Better to ask for forgiveness than permission at that point and Ahsoka continued, tearing fabric until she could touch flushed skin, and Anakin had her skirt hiked up to her waist and was pulling just hard at the pants under it. She realized why he seemed to have slightly better control when she took her hands off of him to get her clothing pushed down just enough--with only one hand to grip and pull with he wasn’t able to wrench the fabric quite as hard as she had been able to. Her clothing would be in tatters too if he had been able to manage it, and the thought made her laugh. Anakin’s hand slid over her half-bare thigh and over her hip, warm through his glove but not _enough_ , and she reached down between them to guide his cock into her as she rocked down against him to take him with a cry. Even slick and eager--more than she could ever remember being thanks to the Silda pollen--it was almost too much for her. She felt herself tense without meaning to, and deep within her teeth tensed against his length, holding him in place until she was ready for more. They weren’t like her other teeth, these weren’t so sharp they could cut and make someone bleed, they were smooth and rounded like uneven pearls, hidden deep along her sensitive skin to aid in guiding a partner in when to move and when to wait.

“Wh-what…?” Anakin muttered against her throat. He was trembling under her as he kept still, letting her relax into the feeling of being stretched and filled. Ahsoka wasn’t nearly so patient, she rolled her hips, whimpering as she made him move within her, her slick, smooth lower teeth gliding over his hard skin, and he gripped her hip to rock up inside of her. It struck her then that, while it was close enough, they weren’t really designed to fit together. The more she moved the more she was aware he was bigger than she could easily take, and she didn’t even know how human women were built or if she was much like one. Although that wouldn’t stop her at that point. If anything the ache from taking too much too quickly spurned her on, she wanted more, she wanted _everything_ he could give her.

“Teeth, my teeth,” Ahsoka muttered as she pushed Anakin back to lay on the cot, rocking down against him and moaning as she rode him. She was flushed, not from the action, but at explaining something that, to her, was so obvious.

“Do--ah! Do you bite?” Anakin said under her. If the prospect was an unappealing one he didn’t show it, moving eagerly to meet her movements, thrusting up inside of Ahsoka as his hand slid over her thigh and hip, up to stroke over and grip her breast through her clothing. There was still too much between them, too much fabric, but she could solve that problem later, _after_.

“I…” Ahsoka was cut off by a moan, a tremor through her belly as a warning to how close she was already. It was harder to think than before, but finally she nodded as she moved. “Y-yeah.”

Admitting it didn’t change anything, Anakin still kept moving beneath her, and Ahsoka wasn’t going to stop him. She needed him, and she needed this. His hand slid up and cupped her cheek and she put her hand over his to hold him close. She braced her other hand against his chest as she moved, and she gave in. She rode him harder, gasping and moaning and closing her eyes just to focus on the way she felt, the way Anakin felt under her and inside of her, and too soon she was tensing as she came. With the tensing her teeth held fast again, keeping Anakin deep within her. It was barely a moment after her, when her teeth closed around him to keep him, that he shuddered under her and she felt him fill her.

 

* * *

 

The effect of the Silda didn’t last long. They weren’t even out of hyperspace by the time the overwhelming need had faded back. Being coherent came with questions and duties, and while they could put it off eventually the pre-charted course ended and Ahsoka had to leave and pilot the ship again. It gave Ahsoka some time to think, about how this changed things, or even _if_ this changed things. She glanced over her shoulder when Anakin came in, and she couldn’t help but smile when he settled into the copilot’s seat.

“I gave my report over holo,” Anakin said as he settled in. His right hand was moving now, and he flexed it before he handed over Ahsoka’s lightsabers. With his mind somewhat cleared after their exercise he’d finally managed to get his hand repaired, and he’d done the same for their weapons as well--hers first and then his. “And I fixed these for you.”

“Thanks,” she took her weapons and put them back on her belt. “What did you tell them?”

“Just the important parts. What we found, who we found, where they are and that they should really be picked up by now before something else gets them.”

“And the stuff with you and me?” Ahsoka asked carefully.

“That’s something you and I have to talk about first,” Anakin answered.

“I’m not coming back,” Ahsoka blurted out. She hadn’t meant to say it so suddenly, or strongly, but it was true and she wasn’t going to take it back even if the delivery was awkward. To her surprise Anakin chuckled.

“Yeah, I know. You’re hard-headed, Snips, once you decide something there’s nothing that’s going to change your mind.”

The moments stretched out into an awkward silence. Ahsoka was waiting for him to say something more, and Anakin was clearly trying to come up with the right words.

“There are some things the Jedi taught me that I can’t do. At least, not as well as I’m supposed to,” Anakin said slowly, considering each word in a way Ahsoka never heard him do before. She’d heard him try to teach and try to be diplomatic, but this was something else entirely. He turned his lightsaber over in his hand slowly and looked down at the weapon instead of at her. “And the biggest lesson I’ve had trouble with was letting go. But I think, now, I’m finally ready to let go.”

Ahsoka closed her eyes and turned away from him at that. Goodbyes should have been able to get easier the more often they were said, not harder. She was aware of Anakin moving but it wasn’t until she felt his hand on hers that she turned to look at him. He eased her hand off of the controls gently and slid his fingers between hers. He was smiling at her, a sad sort of smile, but she was sure she saw hope in it too. She curled her fingers between his and held tight.

“So let’s go,” he said.


End file.
